New DI Press at University of Colorado

Since overseeing the installation of a Presstek 34DI digital offset press last July, Al Goranson, manager of Imaging Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has achieved his goal of taking in more long-run, full-color work.

“As our volume of four-color work continued to grow, especially in run lengths greater than 1,000, we needed something that could produce the work at a cheaper cost than our HP Indigo 3050 digital press,” recalls Goranson. “We had opportunities on longer runs that were just not economic to produce on the Indigo. That was why we chose the Presstek 34DI press.”

Working with limited floor space, Goranson had to take out the shop’s Ryobi 512 press to make room for the Presstek 34DI, a certified pre-owned model. He says he likes the quality produced by the new machine much better than what the Ryobi offered.

While the nine-employee in-plant still operates the HP Indigo press, as well as a Heidelberg Digimaster, it is now able to produce long-run postcards and publication work using the Presstek 34DI. The quality, Goranson says, is excellent.

“The Presstek 34DI registers exactly; there is no registration that is manual at all,” he says. “Our customers are also ecstatic about the quality the DI delivers and its small environmental footprint.”

Goranson is excited about the new possibilities that the press will open up for the in-plant, and adds that he would like to start printing university calendars and small publications—in quantities of 2,000 and 5,000.

“Those types of jobs are really what I am trying to bring in, and get the opportunity to bid on,” he says.

In November, Imaging Services also brought in a black-and-white Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 951.

“The total cost of ownership on that was very competitive with other devices we looked at that were very similar to it,” says Goranson.

So far, what he likes best about the printer is that it does punching/finishing inline. The machine can also copy graphics and take digital files much easier, unlike the bizhub 920 that it replaced.

“We will now be able to produce course pack work on the bizhub PRO 951 that we were not able to produce before,” Goranson says.